OLD LINE PLATE - Page 7 of 67 - COOKING / MARYLAND / HISTORY

Lemon Ice Box Pie, Mrs. Harry C. Michael

June 18, 2023October 3, 2023

Next time you drop a few ice cubes into a cold beverage think of this: many early-20th-century consumers would be wary of your “artificial” ice. Unless of course, your ice happens to be harvested from a lake or a mountain somewhere.

The technology to create ice from water was first developed in the mid-1800s, but it caught on slowly. The ice trade continued to collect ice from natural stores and ship it around the country.

It’s no surprise that manufactured ice might scare consumers. Think of how strange it must have seemed. As always, industry had to sway the public. The Maryland Ice Company took out an ad in the Baltimore Sun in 1892 declaring that “manufactured ice is not only purer, but will last longer and produce equally as much cold as ‘natural ice.”

Apparently, this was still a concern in 1923 when an American Ice company ad in the Evening Sun explained to readers that “American Ice is… made from filtered water and frozen in sanitary plants,” and that it was “very real, absolutely pure Ice.” The ad stated that American Ice had nine plants in Baltimore “all making clean, pure, healthful ice.”

Wineberry* Jam, Mrs. Franklin Wilson manuscript

June 10, 2023June 11, 2023

When I looked through my database for a raspberry jelly recipe, I noticed that most of them had the addition of currants. This makes sense because the currants contain pectin to help the recipe “jell,” and the currants also add a little bit of tangy depth. This was particularly welcome in my case because I was not working with raspberries at all, but the less flavorful (but invasive and abundant) wineberry.

Interestingly, raspberries are native to North America but also to Asia Minor. They had already spread throughout Europe long before colonization.

It’s no surprise then, that raspberry-currant jams and jellies appear in the oldest Maryland cookbook manuscripts. With only three ingredients, there is not much variation. The distinction of jellies like this depended a lot on how good the cook was at clarifying the jelly. The more transparent, the more luxurious.

Like most of the more common people of those times, I lean towards preserves that don’t waste the fruit’s pulp. But with wineberries growing free and abundant, why not live like the other half!

My chosen recipe comes care of Mrs. Franklin Wilson’s recipe manuscript at the Maryland Center for History and Culture. The Wilson family collection is a huge trove of legal documents, scrapbooks, photographs, and letters.

Beef Roulades, Edyth Malin

June 4, 2023October 3, 2023

The Dakota Cheese Company was flying high in 1983. With 11.5 million in sales of mozzarella and provolone, the 12-year-old company was expected to continue growing. Dakota Cheese president James Dee credited his government contracts for his company’s success. That success was enabling expansion into private markets. Dee expected Dakota Cheese to score a big contract with “a major chain of pizza parlors” soon.

Five years later, success gave way to disgrace. Farmers stopped delivering milk. Dee was forced to sell off his company’s assets to Associated Milk Producers Inc. No self-respecting pizza parlor would be associated with Dakota Cheese. Not after they’d been accused of defrauding the government.

The 1988 indictment claimed that by using calcium caseinate as an ingredient in the cheese purchased for school lunch contracts, Dakota Cheese had misled the government and violated the FDA cheese regulations.

A lab near Philadelphia completed an analysis of the cheese. They declared the mozzarella to be “phony.”

The company was done for.

But the Philadelphia scientists were just getting started. The analysis had them inspired. Perhaps mozzarella cheese could be altered within the confines of FDA law. Perhaps it could be improved upon, made lower fat, without sacrificing taste and texture. The lab took on the name “The Mozarella Group.”

Try and Guess Salad, Mrs. James F. Colwill

May 28, 2023May 28, 2023

The mere concept of aspic invites a gag reflex in many people. Add to that any wacky combination of ingredients and you have a recipe tailor-made to go viral for yuks (and yucks.)

When I first saw the recipe for “Try and Guess Salad,” my first reaction was not disgust. It was deja vu. I thought I recognized it from a local cookbook. I wasn’t sure which one. Who knows how many cookbooks I read in a year? The recipe was being shared, as so many are these days, because it sounds gross. Raspberry gelatin with stewed tomatoes… and horseradish?

And then, for a few days, “Try and Guess Salad” was everywhere. Food-centric Facebook groups and twitter accounts shared it, and everyone seemed to bond over their horror. On the reddit thread where the recipe made an appearance, commenters expressed their disdain in no uncertain terms.

Not me, of course. I imagined meat with currant sauce. Tangy horseradish. It didn’t sound great but I didn’t “wish I could unsee it” or whatever.

I searched the names of the people accompanying the image, Mrs. J. Stuart Cassilly and Helen Luedke, and I did indeed find Maryland connections. The scanned cookbook page on the internet appeared to be from a 1980s cookbook.

When I dug further, I found the recipe mentioned in the Baltimore Sun in the 1960s, when it appeared in “The Pleasure of Your Company,” a cookbook put out by St. Thomas’ Church in Garrison Forest (Owings Mills) in 1967. Contributor Mrs. James F. Colwill, neé Marion Jane Tuttle, was born in 1912 in Hastings, Minnesota before her family moved to Maryland. She married James Frederick Colwill in 1941 and died in 1988. Her “Try & Guess Salad” endured for decades – it also appeared in St. Thomas’ 1987 cookbook, “Two and Company.”

Mrs. Colwill’s Minnesota origins aside, I was convinced I had a Maryland original on my hands. I couldn’t find “Try and Guess Salad” in any earlier form elsewhere… until I thought to search for “Mystery Salad.”

Tomato Aspic at the Woman’s Industrial Exchange

May 14, 2023October 3, 2023

Amy Rosenkrans and I stood outside of the Woman’s Industrial Exchange building at 333 North Charles, looking at the artwork in the window. In 2020, the iconic but neglected 200-year-old building had been given to the Maryland Women’s Heritage Center. The inside was now filled with stories of Maryland suffragists, scientists, and leaders. The window showcased the wooden artworks of Paula Darby, the latest artist in a rotation of women artists put on display facing the hustle and bustle of Charles Street.

Layne Bosserman opened the front door towards us and announced “I found something.”

Although I was theoretically making my way out of the building, I couldn’t resist ducking back in to see Bosserman splaying several manila folders onto a table. Inside the first was a document thanking Julia Roberts for dining at the Exchange. There were several papers regarding charity events, an old photograph of the building, and a typewritten list of the Board of Directors. Most excitingly for my purposes were several menus. A luncheon featuring the Woman’s Exchange Tea Room’s famous tomato aspic and chicken salad platter, hot rolls, lemon tarts, and pumpkin pie. Some breakfast specials: eggs and bacon, homemade biscuits, assorted juices, “petite pancakes,” coffee cake, and peach upside-down cake. Most items could be had for under a dollar.

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